JTweedie
Well-known member
Went to Lochwinnoch today. No sign of the long-staying great white egret or the green sandpiper.
The highlight was a ruddy shelduck. I was in the visitor centre tower and chatting to a staff member when it came flying in to the reserve. It set about bullying some Canada geese but soon settled down. This was a lifer for me. It's quite possible that it's an escape from a collection, but there was another spotted in Lanark as well. Probably a coincidence, but maybe it suggests there's a small influx of them.
This is the first bird I've "found" although you couldn't really have missed it. A little later I heard a man who entered the visitor centre say "there it is" as he spotted it through the window and I felt a wee bit chuffed that I made people set out to see it.
Other highlights included the first of the season's whooper swans. There are some resident whoopers in the Clyde area, but it's always good to see the migrants arrive. The water was really high and all the tufted ducks had shifted over to Barr Loch. The only other ducks visible on Aird Meadow were teal and mallard, although there were a good number of greylag geese.
Some snipe were spotted flying up from the marsh. I also spotted three raptors: common buzzard, kestrel and sparrowhawk.
The feeding stations were really busy with nuthatch being the highlight, but hopefully as we enter winter we'll see siskin, brambling and redpoll.
They've been doing a lot of work on the reserve, reshaping Aird Meadow. I think the aim is to create more muddy areas that'll attract waders. There's already a good number of lapwing, and we're seeing regular reports of other waders now, so hopefully it'll work. But it makes you realise that a lot of conservation is about attracting particular species to please us.
The highlight was a ruddy shelduck. I was in the visitor centre tower and chatting to a staff member when it came flying in to the reserve. It set about bullying some Canada geese but soon settled down. This was a lifer for me. It's quite possible that it's an escape from a collection, but there was another spotted in Lanark as well. Probably a coincidence, but maybe it suggests there's a small influx of them.
This is the first bird I've "found" although you couldn't really have missed it. A little later I heard a man who entered the visitor centre say "there it is" as he spotted it through the window and I felt a wee bit chuffed that I made people set out to see it.
Other highlights included the first of the season's whooper swans. There are some resident whoopers in the Clyde area, but it's always good to see the migrants arrive. The water was really high and all the tufted ducks had shifted over to Barr Loch. The only other ducks visible on Aird Meadow were teal and mallard, although there were a good number of greylag geese.
Some snipe were spotted flying up from the marsh. I also spotted three raptors: common buzzard, kestrel and sparrowhawk.
The feeding stations were really busy with nuthatch being the highlight, but hopefully as we enter winter we'll see siskin, brambling and redpoll.
They've been doing a lot of work on the reserve, reshaping Aird Meadow. I think the aim is to create more muddy areas that'll attract waders. There's already a good number of lapwing, and we're seeing regular reports of other waders now, so hopefully it'll work. But it makes you realise that a lot of conservation is about attracting particular species to please us.
